


First Hundred Days

by m_meagher



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Oval Office, Post-Series The West Wing, Santos Administration, The West Wing - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27760474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_meagher/pseuds/m_meagher
Summary: The Santos administration is off to the races, but in the midst of this "First Hundred Days" whirlwind, Josh Lyman and Donna Moss still manage to carve out time for some extracurricular activities together.
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss, Josh Lyman/Matt Santos
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	First Hundred Days

The first hundred days are the most productive of an entire four-year term. Josh Lyman had informed him of this. Drilled it into his head, more accurately. The Chief-of-Staff was zealous to put it mildly—or monomaniacal, as Donna Moss was always quick to call it. But his political instincts were unrivaled in the Democratic Party, and Matt Santos never took it for granted that Josh was the reason he stood here in the Oval Office at this precise moment.

Now three months into his tenure as Commander-in-Chief of these United States, the President allowed himself a minute to relish the swell of pride in his chest as he reflected on the various measures this new administration had already begun to implement. Sam Seaborn, the brilliant wordsmith and legal mind that he was, had taken the reins on drafting a universal Medicare proposal that was likely to squeeze past insurance lobbyists and make it to the Congress floor. The education reform plan, which the majority of Santos’ campaign was built around, was on-track to be ratified in both the House and Senate, and the foundations of a pilot program were in the works to test the usefulness of a 240-day academic year in D.C. public schools.

In other words, Santos and his staff had been busy. Josh was right, as usual—those first hundred days were a whirlwind of productivity, and no one seemed to have any intentions of slowing the momentum. But on the subject of momentum, he admonished himself, it was time to start the day. Shaking off this mental reverie, Santos turned his focus to the schedule his assistant Ronna Beckman had left on the Resolute Desk. An hour until his daily briefing with the NSA Director—that would spare him just enough time to touch base with Josh about his phone call last night with the Russian delegate to Kazakhstan.

Despite his limited foreign policy experience in the Bartlet administration, Josh had proven himself to be a smooth broker on the world stage these past few months, a fact which Santos found comical given the Chief-of-Staff's predilection for outbursts. He nudged open the door which connected Josh’s office to the Oval and poked his head inside, expecting Josh to be asleep at the desk—his hair in its trademark disarray and a mess of documents strewn all over the workspace. _How was Donna able to manage his chaos for all those years?_ Santos mused for about the millionth time. But to his surprise, Josh was not in the office wearing yesterday’s rumpled suit for once. _How un-Josh-like. And it’s after 7AM already_ , the President noted with a sideways glance at the clock. _Where is he?_

If Santos had checked with the two Secret Service agents outside the office which belonged to his wife Helen’s Chief-of-Staff, he would have pieced together Josh’s whereabouts. But his second-in-command was too engrossed in other activities at this particular moment to offer a straight answer himself. As it turned out, Donna’s enormous office—complete with a conference table and fireplace—was an ideal rendezvous spot for love making, Josh and Donna had unanimously concurred.

Its location in the East Wing made it quieter and less conspicuous than the tornado of energy that was the West Wing. But as the central hub of the First Lady’s own White House agenda, there was still a chance for their amorous trysts to be discovered, a risk that both Chiefs-of-Staff found exhilarating. Now as they languished under a throw blanket in front of the fireplace—Josh bare chested and Donna in his Harvard sweatshirt that she discreetly kept on-hand for such occasions—it was almost too easy to forget their senior advisory roles to the First Couple of the United States. In fact, if Josh screwed his eyes closed forcefully enough and tuned his awareness to just the sound of Donna’s even breaths and rhythmic heartbeat, he might have assumed they were the only two humans inside this White House, or perhaps in the entire world. 

_Duty calls_ , Josh chastised himself drowsily as he rolled over in an effort to clear the post-sex haze from his addled brain. _Isn’t that the word Amy Gardner once used to describe my mental state during our...relationship...or whatever the hell it was?_ He snickered under his breath at the memory. How clueless he was about women back then, chasing after Amy when his true other half perched at a desk in the bullpen outside his office door.

Nine years of missed opportunities and close encounters—both of them within a breadth of losing each other to near-fatal injuries, and he so desperate to hold onto her that she almost walked out of his life forever. But they arrived on the other side, intact and together, like the irrepressible team they had been since Donna first hired herself as Josh’s assistant at the Bartlet for America headquarters. He loved her then, Josh could admit it now, and he loved her still, more than politics and campaign trails and his own wild ambitions. However, what continued to blow his mind was that she loved him too.

As Josh marveled at his incredible fortune, a lithe manicured hand began to snake its way across his shoulder, lurching all his senses into focus—Donatella Moss was awake. “Morning,” she warbled in a throaty exhale that carried the remnants of a dream. Wordless and slack jawed, he watched Donna shove a few strands of her blonde tangled mane behind one ear. _How can she make even half-asleep look sexy?_ Donna broke into her signature wide toothy smile then, and with a flush of bruised male ego, Josh realized he had voiced the thought aloud.

“I can never play it cool with you,” he remarked, flaunting those boyish dimples she was helpless to resist. “Joshua,” she crooned in a tone which belied a hint of sarcasm, “You might be one of the most powerful men in the country, but we both know that my feminine wiles actually run this show.” And that was all the provocation it took—with a rueful mischievous glint in his eyes, Josh’s mouth latched onto hers, effectively silencing the banter and consuming Donna with a pheromone that was so uniquely Josh. 

“In a few minutes, Sam and the President will commission a search party all over the West Wing to track you down,” she moaned against his neck. But Josh could not have been less concerned about his job responsibilities at the moment if he tried. “Don’t you have to brief POTUS on the latest news in Kazakhstan?” Donna took another cursory stab at professionalism as she nibbled on the cartilage of his ear lobe. “What? Umm...yeah? I think...No, forget Kazakhstan,” Josh fumbled, pinning her down with a fixed carnal stare. “Let’s slip off to Hawaii again.”

Of course, however, that was only wishful thinking. And when the Chief-of-Staff entered the Oval at 7:25AM with his familiar dishevelment only somewhat under control, so commenced their hundredth day in office. But as for those extracurricular East Wing activities, President Matthew Santos was none the wiser.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the brilliant Aaron Sorkin for breathing life into these complicated, endearing characters. Although it took them two presidential terms and another campaign to finally sort themselves out for one another, it was more than worth the wait—and if anyone has earned the right to have a tryst in the White House, it's these two newly minted Chiefs-of-Staff!


End file.
